


Like The Stone

by slash4femme



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 11:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15605388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slash4femme/pseuds/slash4femme
Summary: Gai supposes it’s his own fault for getting so attached. That’s what any shinobi would tell him and Gai knows it’s true. Comrades die but losing Neji isn’t losing a comrade. Not to Gai.He can’t breathe from the pain of it most days.After the war Gai deals with Neji's death.





	Like The Stone

**Author's Note:**

> flash fic written for a Tumblr anon who wanted angsty kakagai. 
> 
> I decided to write about Gai dealing with Neji's death because I've been meaning to write about it for ages but also because it's so very rarely addressed in fan works. So much Kakashi/Gai focuses on Gai caring for Kakashi as he grieves or tries to work through trauma. Very rarely do we see the opposite and I wanted to explore that.

Gai falls into a dark depression after the war. **  
**

There are his physical injuries. His flesh is cracked and burned all over his body in some cases right down to the bone. His eyebrows and hair are gone. One of his legs and foot mangled and mostly gone. He’s lost significant mobility and strength. Everyone he talks to, from Tsunade to Sakura, is unsure if he will ever regain either. The fact is probably not.

He hurts all the time. His skin burns, itches and peels. The rest of his body aches too at a bone-deep level that seems to never go away.

But all this Gai can live with. He knows himself, he knows he can get through it, learn to find his way in the world again. It’s difficult now, to the point where some nights, when it’s dark and he’s alone he wants to weep for all the things he’s lost and the things he’ll have to relearn. But still, he knows he’ll make it through.

So it’s not his physical condition that fills up even the smallest corners of his mind with grief, guilt, and loathing until it feels like he’s drowning in it.

It’s Neji’s death.

Gai supposes it’s his own fault for getting so attached. That’s what any shinobi would tell him and Gai knows it’s true. Comrades die but losing Neji isn’t losing a comrade. Not to Gai.

He can’t breathe from the pain of it most days.

He lays in his hospital bed and thinks about all the things he could have done differently. All the times he could have reached out to Neji and hadn’t. The times when he could have trained with him more, given him the extra attention Neji so desperately needed.

He’d tried to be fair and give equal attention to each of his students, but Lee needed so much more hands-on work, and Tenten had no one else to show her the way towards her true potential.

Neji had been a genius, show him a move or a stance once and he’d be able to copy it perfectly and remember it forever. He came from an entire clan that practiced his style. He just never seemed to need as much from Gai as the other two had.

But Gai should have known better than that. He should have made the time.

There had been periods, of weeks even months when Neji would disappear inside the Hyuuga compound. Training with his uncle, he’d say when Gai would see him next for a mission or a session of team training. Neji would have dark circles under his eyes after those times. The bones of his wrists would jut out, just a little too pronounced under the skin. He’d carry himself carefully as if his entire body hurt.

Gai would bite his tongue, sometimes hard enough to bleed, and say nothing.

He’d sworn to the Hokage when he’d taken his team that he would not meddle in the Hyuuga clan’s affairs. He’d kept that oath even when it was so very difficult to do so.

He’d tried to be a safe presence for Neji instead, someone for Neji to turn to, somewhere for him to go.

But he should have stepped in. He should have said something, or done something. Neji had been a child, Gai’s child and no oath, not even to the Hokage, should have stood in the way of that.

He should have talked to Neji more, reached out more, hugged him more.

He should have let Neji that Gai had seen how much Neji had grown and learned over the years, that he respected him and been proud of him.

He should have told Neji that he loved him.

That had been his job and he’d let Neji down.

The first time Tenten sees him after he wakes up in the hospital she throws herself at him and  _sobs_.

He doesn’t know what to say or what to do. To Lee either who comes only a little while after her, big eyes filled with tears as he hold’s Gai’s hand. Gai wants so much to be able to take some of the pain for them, to shoulder it so they won’t have to. He just doesn’t know how anymore.

Gai cries often and usually the tears are a relief, a way for him to acknowledge his emotions and then set them aside.

Now the tears just make him feel hollowed out and empty.

He hurts.

He hurts all the time.

Kakashi comes sometimes. He’s there during the day a lot too and sometimes falls asleep in the chair next to Gai’s bed. Sometimes though when Gai is alone and his mind turns to those darker places Kakashi comes, silently slipping through the window and into Gai’s hospital room.

Gai doesn’t know how Kakashi knows, but he’s grateful Kakashi does.

They don’t talk about it most of the time.

Kakashi stretches himself out across the hospital bed, next to Gai. Body curving against Gai’s body, head resting, very gently, against Gai’s shoulder.

He’s careful not to press against Gai’s damaged skin, or touch any of the parts of him where he can no longer be comfortably touched. This close though Gai can feel Kakashi’s breath against his neck, the slight rise and fall of his chest, brushing against his arm. He counts those breaths, tries to match his own breathing to it. Tries to bring himself back.

Most of the time he does. Sometimes it just makes it hurt more like he’s not worthy of this, of Kakashi’s attention, his care.

“Do you want to go outside?” Kakashi says one night when they are curved around each other in the dark and Gai is fighting so hard not to drown.

Gai makes a small confused noise. “Go where?”

His voice comes out stretchy and rough, as it always does now. He’s been told there are burns in his throat and lungs that causes it.

Kakashi shrugs, still careful not to bump Gai’s shoulder when he does. “Anywhere you want. The roof maybe.”

Gai isn’t sure if this is a good idea or what it will change but he nods anyway. “Alright Kakashi, lead the way.”

Kakashi carefully pushes away from Gai and then stands and picks Gai up.

Gai his actually quite impressed. He knows Kakashi is strong, but still, Gai is not a small man, even now.

The window is still open from where Kakashi had entered earlier. It’s a little bit complicated for them both to make it through but in the end not that difficult all things considered. Gai sits on the edge while Kakashi swings up to the roof, and then Kakashi helps pull him up the rest of the way.

Gai settles himself as comfortably as possible on the roof tiles and Kakashi sits next to him, knees drawn up to his chest, gaze scanning Konoha stretched out below them.

It’s colder up here than in Gai’s hospital room. The wind is chill tonight. It blows straight through the light robe he’s wearing, pricking across the light fuzz of hair that’s growing back across his scalp. It feels good. Gai tips his face up towards it, let’s his eyes fall shut, takes a deep breath.

When he opens his eyes again he notices that the sky stretched out above them is clear and bright with stars.

“You know,” Kakashi says. “After you opened the eighth gate and I thought you’d died …” He trails off into silence, gaze still fixed on the village and not Gai.

Gai waits, he’s known this was brewing and he wants to reach out, take a little of Kakashi’s pain like he always does. He’s just not sure he can right now.

Kakashi takes a breath, firm and decisive. His gaze moves to fix on Gai.

“I love you.” He says. “I want us to grow old together. To watch the kids have kids. To fill our house up with tortoises and dogs. I want to see you smile again. So whatever it is you need I’ll give it. However long this will take I will be there.”

Gently, carefully, he reaches out and takes Gai’s bandaged hand, fingers just barely curling around Gai’s own.

Once again Gai doesn’t know what to say. He should give a speech he thinks, the words just don’t come through. Not now, not today.

But for once that’s alright.  

He looks at Kakashi and thinks one day they will.

And Kakashi will still be right here to hear them.


End file.
